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Mike Parisi was selected this year by the Chicago Cubs in the Rule 5 Draft. The gist: that means he was a guy who’d been in the minors a long time without being placed on a team’s 40-man roster, and the Cubs wanted to give him a shot to make their 25-man roster. Usually, if a Rule 5 pick doesn’t make the selecting team’s 25-man, he is returned to the team from whence he came, unless that team doesn’t want him back.

Parisi didn’t make the Cubs – they cut him yesterday – but today, he’s a member of the Iowa Cubs. How did that happen? Did the Cardinals just decide they didn’t want him back? Yes. But it’s actually a bit more complicated than that.

The righthander was the Cubs’ Rule 5 pick from the Cardinals in December, meaning for the Cubs to gain control of him he had to spend the entire 2010 season on their major-league roster. There was a catch: The Cardinals had outrighted him off the 40-man roster before — when he was going through rehab for Tommy John surgery — and because of that he had the option to choose free agency if outrighted for a second time. That is what the Cubs did this week.

The Cubs outrighted Parisi to the minors. That put him on waivers. As a Rule 5 pick, he cleared waivers when the 28 other teams — excluding the Cubs and Cardinals — declined to claim him. Parisi was then offered back to the Cardinals for the cost of $25,000, per Rule 5 policy. Here’s the wrinkle: Because this was the second time Parisi had been outrighted, the righthander had to tell the Cardinals whether he planned to take free agency if returned to the Cardinals’ minor-league roster.

He told them he would.

That took the decision out of the Cardinals’ hands. If they paid for his return from the Rule 5 selection they would just be out the $25,000 because he’d elect to be a free agent within 72 hours of returning to the team. They would, essentially, pay to have become a free agent here instead of letting him become one there. St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

You follow all that? Even if not, you don’t need to: just know that the Cubs plucked Parisi, who is 26, from the Cardinals for $50,000. He’ll now be one of the first few guys considered if the Cubs need a right-handed guy in the bullpen later in the season.

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